Zing

If you really love jumpin', it takes all your life and money. Zing Lurks

Bill Dause said. ... "he said we don't do that here we just jump." You just gotta love the guy for that attitude! I've had a great time at Dause's places in Pope Valley and Lodi. Zing Lurks

Larger airplanes seem to diminish the overall effect but, Bullit Bob's garlic, fish-heads and rice diet peeled the zinc chromate off the walls of the Twin Beeches we had at Ghoulidge, and dEd Dugan planned his diet and timed his meals to emit the most ghastly odors at the prime times, like 10 grand on the way up whether he was flying or jumping. Zing Lurks

It was Skip Evans flying 86Ugly that evening. Three people went out the overhead emergency exit above the pilots' seats. Two went down the fuselage and slid off the right side. One dropped from the nose. Somewhere, I've got an interview I did with Skip (back when I was mild-mannered reporter for a metropolitan newspaper) about the incident. Much better tale than both of my best flying lies. Zing Lurks

Several problems here: 1. Hard not to incriminate others against their wishes . I'm pretty certain I'll never be president, but I've an acquaintence or two that might have a shot at elected office. 2. Memery fades and fuzzes and sometimes the places and dates get skewed a bit. 3. Most of you wouldn't believe it if I told the truth compared with the tales I've heard about me at dropzones. This thread does make good reading ... but leaves me with more questions than answers. Sport Death Zing Lurks

"Do yourself a big favour: find another DZ. I would not jump/fly at a place they lost three planes and where the DZO gets pissed off when you take a safety oriented decision. " Well, guess that puts Elroy off limits. Zing Lurks

Lived in "the coffin for about six months at Ghoulide while the wreck hall was being "renovated." It was a tarp over the top of a home made camper shell I kept after selling the truck for fun coupons. Zing Lurks

I think it was about 1.5 years for dEd. Zing Lurks

Once upon a time a black racer crawled up into the tail wheel well of a twin beech at Ghoulidge and several jumpers refused to get into the airplane until we got the snake out. No shit ... there I was! Zing Lurks

Quote from manifester ..."But Zing, are you really current?" Zing Lurks

At Rantoul a couple years ago I took one of the FAA folks for an observer ride. We had been battling the cloud wars all week long, all the jump planes blatantly busting cloud clearance regs. As we climbed at it got increasingly difficult to stay legal, I asked the fed straight out if the rumour was true that the FAA had granted the boogie a waiver on cloud clearances. The reply was, "I don't know anything about that myself, but I can ask." We went through some fairly robust "industrial haze" going up and down ... half the load fell through clouds. After landing she thanked me for the ride, but commented that she wished it had been a bit more exciting, "like you guys normally come down." I just shrugged. Zing Lurks

Hey Sparky ... you don't s'pose this is an old Ghoulidge jumper do you? I recall a five-way after 8 years once upon a time. Zing Lurks

The Gypsy Rose was Ken Spiva's airplane back then. When I flew it at Ghoulidge, it was red/white and blue and it was REALLY nice. It has N-number 101KC and is currently polished metal with a green stripe down the side and is called simply "Rose." No longer hauls jumpers, but does nostalgia flights and type rating stuff out of the Corona Airport in SoCal. For DC-3 buffs ... try centercomp.com/dc3 It's an on-line DC-3 museum with tons of stuff and pictures ... look far enough into the photo galleries and you'll find about 80 pics I sent in. Lots of history on this site Zing Lurks

Agreed ... and the last thing the pilot needs when the fan quits turning is a major change in CG and assholes and armpits bashing controls, climbing the pilot's seat, etc. when attention needs to be focused on finding a place to land. "Any landing you run away from is good enough." said my first flight instructor. You know what that fan thing on the front of the motor is really for? To keep the pilot cool ... 'cause you should see em' sweat when it stops. Zing Lurks

In the 70s it was about obtaining the coveted B.I.F.F. number ... took several attempts before my "friend" and I finally accomplished it. She got #3, I got #4. It finally worked after getting started in the airplane ... and was concluded on the ground before we walked back to the Ghoulidge hangar. Zing Lurks

Here's Southern Cross at WFFC in 2005. I've jumped out of it in the past, but never got to fly it. I did manage to get about 1400 hours in (I think) nine other DC-3s. Great airplane to fly. try centercomp.com/dc3 for an online DC-3 museum. I've got about 80 photos of assorted DC-3 there in the photos section. They're listed under my real name Well, haven't figuted out how to attach jpeg files ... but the plane was really there ... I swear it was. Zing Lurks

And what then would be a "down" jumper? Zing Lurks

Pastor's Ass A pastor wanted to raise money for his church and, on being told there was a fortune in horse racing, decided to buy one and enter it in the races. However, at the local auction, the going price for a horse was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He thought that since he had it, he might as well go ahead and entered it in the race and, much to his surprise, the donkey came in third. The next day the local paper carried this headline: PASTOR'S ASS SHOWS The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and this time it won. The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race. The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for ten dollars. The next day, the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10 This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. Headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE The Bishop was buried the next day! Zing Lurks

Indeed ... in general, doctors are no more ,no less intelligent, ethical ... FILL IN THE BLANK ... than any other profession going. My dad has practiced medicine (surgeon) for 50-plus years now and a brother retired after 25 (VA chief of staff and dean of major university teaching hospital)years as an MD ... they've got some real Sport Death stories. Both flatly stated that 90 to 95 percent of the patients they see would be fine if they went home, rested and ate properly for a few days ... and 90 to 95 percent of their patients who did require medical treatment failed to follow the doctor's instructions leading to complications and/or extended recovery times. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Zing Lurks

Once upon a time I was a mild-mannered reporter for a metropolitan newspaper ... also a photog. It was rare to shoot a pic that didn't need some fixing up in photoshop, as noted in above post by someone. But this guy's added smoke is, at best, amateurish ... and OBVIOUS to any photo editor. It amazes me it ever got published. As a reporter and photog, I went with the "a picture is worth a thousand words" theory. The more space I filled with pictures, the less I had to write. No reporter is unbiased, every photo used has an agenda. Zing Lurks

There ya go ... I be officially profiled. Zing Lurks

Damn Michael, there goes my reputation. Me? Record holder? Say it ain't so. Zing Lurks

Too little is yet known about the crash of Quantam Leap's twin otter to speculate about the cause. That's best left to the investigators from the NTSB. I'm heartily sad this has occurred. That said, it is VERY disturbing to me that a lightly loaded twin otter, even one with Dash-20 engines, was unable to maintain controlled flight to a survivable landing. I wonder what went wrong in the chain of events. I've been a jump pilot (10,000-plus hours) for a few years and have had engine failures in most phases of flight, including take off. So far, I've been lucky, I guess, but aircraft safety has been one of my pet peeves ever since I started jumping in 1971. From past experience, I can tell you that when the shit hits the fan and the wheels aren't on the ground, it's assholes and armpits in the back where the skydivers are sitting. Panic and terror tend to have rather unsettling effects on folks. Panic results from not knowing what to do and how to react, when the danger level goes deep in the red. Until the pilot in command says otherwise, the best thing you can do during an engine failure is nothing. Don't move, and keep your ears open and your mouth shut. Despite drop zone rules and regulations, I've seen countless examples of stupidity that could have had dire consequences. The open door on take off could spell the difference between a safe landing or a mulitiple fatality crash when an engine fails during rotation and lift off. I do not mean to imply 203E's door was open. I don't know if it was or not. It's irrelavent to this post. But, I can't even tell you how many times I've stopped at the end of the runway and held take off until the door was closed, only to feel and hear it re-open as the aircraft rolled down the runway. Twice, I've aborted take offs and informed the jumpers that if it happened again, they would no longer be welcome in any airplane I was flying. Needless to say, that action wasn't popular with dropzone management at more than one DZ. Those who know me understand that I've never considered my personal survival a lower priority than management's opinion of me. I was the pilot in command. I made the decision ... and stand by it, damn the popularity contests. You can demand that the door remain closed for take off. Even if someone with a dozen gold metals says, "it's too hot." Seatbelts, a relatively new requirement for skydivers since the twin otter crash in California in 1992, are frequently ignored by too many skydivers. Not all plane crashes are survivable, but a PROPERLY installed and utilized seatbelt could make the difference between death, injury, or walking away unscathed. If I recall correctly, the seatbelt and mount is expected to withstand an impact load of 15 g. Beyond that, the wearer can expect to become a projectile along with everything else not secured. A loose or improperly worn seatbelt is capable of inflicting severe injuries. Of the various configurations of seats, benches, floors and belts, consider this. If the belt won't hold you in place, you're not as safe as you could be, and are a potential hazard to the others. On a squat/straddle bench, merely looping a belt through your harness may not be enough. A belt through both leg straps that is snugged down and not flapping loosely at your side might be something to consider. Without a backrest supporting you, a body will slide right out from under a belt over your lap. On the floor, you can indeed slide right out from under a seatbelt during sudden deceleration. Again, putting it through both legstraps and pulling it snug will keep a passenger more securely in place. On a bench seat, the belt needs to be around your body AND snugged down tight to properly secure you. Common sense should tell you that in a bad one, it's better to be held in place than to become the weight at the end of a pendulum that can swing smashingly into things that are harder than the human body. Yeah ... yeah ... I've heard the snivels too ... it's too hot to close the door ... some asshole farted and it smells ... it's too much hassle to get that seatbelt done up right ... etc., etc. ad nauseum. What's your life worth to you? And by the way, I'd just as soon not be squashed by someone who became a meat missile. Center-of-Gravity, also known as CG, is critical to safe flight, yet skydivers are incredibly ignorant about this stuff. Go to the NTSB accident reports on the web and you'll find numerous examples of crashes and incidents directly attributable to out of range CGs. CG is affected by where the weight is relative to a theoretical balance point. As weight moves forward or aft, the CG changes. A CG too far aft can result in the pilot being unable to hold the nose down and has stalled more than one jump plane. I've been there and it isn't fun ... it's terrifying. For the Lockheed Lodestar in Washington, it was fatal ... for something like 16 people. With the CG too far forward, the pilot may not be able to hold the nose up ... as is needed to maintain level flight. This situation can be more than a little bit worrisome during take off and landing. The bottom line on CG is that you can't safely fly airplanes if the CG is too far aft or too far far forward. This post lacks the room for a precise description of CG limits for all the planes used for jumping, but I will offer this opinion ... if the pilot is telling you to move forward or move back, there's likely a good reason for the demand, whether you understand it or not. The FAA's Federal Aviation Regulations clearly state that the pilot-in-command has the authority to demand compliance with requests to passengers in regard to the safety of a flight. You may not like the pilot's request, hell, you may not like the pilot personally, but in the airplane is not the place for an argument. Better to hash it out later on the ground when a load's safety is not an issue. For pilots, I'm not the greatest avaition expert around, but I'll offer a few suggestions that have helped me survive ... so far. Much has been written about VMc, response times, identifying which engine failed (for multi-engine), and the proper airspeed for glide. In the real world, when (AND NOT IF) an engine fails it takes time to react and you WILL lose airspeed ... as much as 10 knots in my experience. Close to the ground, airspeed is your friend. It can be traded for altitude if needed. After lift off (and gear retraction if applicable) grab a few extra knots for the initial climb. If one quits and you're only at blue-line, airspeed could well degrade below blue-line before a pilot can get everything cleaned up and secured. I like at least an extra 10 knots until I've got enough altitude to trade it for airspeed if needed. Fly the airplane as far into the crash as possible ... I think Bob Hoover offerred that gem of advice to Chuck Yeager once. My version of that on is ... Don't hesitate to wrap the airplane up in a ball if that will keep you alive. Survive to fly again, there's more airplanes out there. I've likely said enough ... for now, but if you ride airplanes, you need to understand that the laws of physics governing flight are not appealable for your convenience. Zing lurks Zing Lurks

High Bill, Good to know you're still in this world too. Sport Death Zing Lurks

I ran the dz at Coolidge from 1976 untik 1983. Flew jumpers there from 1988 until 1992 and again from 2002 until 2005. I live on some land just down the road from the airport Zing Lurks